


Random Snips

by NightmareAmpersand



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightmareAmpersand/pseuds/NightmareAmpersand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short drabbles. Some of these may be expanded into proper stories, but mostly they're manifestations of whatever was on my mind at the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blending In

Blending In (12/21/08)

"I don't want to, Erra. What's the point?"

"The point is to have you blend in. Now put them on, Kei."

Kei quietly took the faux fox ears mounted on a headband and slipped them on, looking down at the ground as she did so. "I don't like them."

"I don't care. Now that your mother's gone you don't really have anyone to protect you. You have to try to fit in here if you don't want granny to kick you out." Erra was upset, her tail lashing from side to side and one ear twitching in irritation towards her little cousin.

"Don't care. Don't want to be here." Kei's little face scrunched up slightly, but remarkably she didn't cry. That wasn't too unusual; Kei was rather serious for a five year old child. The only time Erra really had seen the tiny human cry was at her mother's cremation, and even then it had only been silent tears tracking down her cheeks. It was quite unlike other humans she'd known, who seemed to always wear their hearts on their sleeves and turn any little incident into the Drama of the Year. 

"It's a privilege to be here at the Kitsu Shrine," Erra reminded her. "Your mother was lucky to be taken back in after she left and had you with another human; she was lucky to have stayed here after granny adopted her. Humans aren't welcome here, you know that. The only thing that kept you safe here was your mother." Kei still said nothing, looking at the ground, but her eyes had become distant, cold. With a sigh Erra knelt down to the girl's level and tilted her chin up so they looked eye to eye. "Don't you want to be a shrine maiden, like your mother? Don't you want to learn to be a kunoichi like her too?"

"I'm never going to be accepted here, no matter how hard I try. I'm never going to be accepted in the human world, either. What's the point of trying to live in either world?" Erra shuffled back slightly, unnerved by the cold, adult speech coming from the child's mouth and the hard, cold look in her eyes. She really thought she had nothing left to live for, and that scared Erra more than she could say. As harsh as she had been with her, Erra loved her little cousin and wanted to see her happy again. "I should leave and never come back. I'll only cause more trouble no matter where I stay."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," Erra snapped at her, pushing her down so she knelt on the ground before her. "Why do you think your mother brought you back here? She knew you wouldn't have a normal life wherever you lived, but at least here you can learn skills that will help you. Here, you have a chance of being accepted. And here is where your family is. Including me." Her voice softened at the last sentence, and that caused Kei to look at her with calculating eyes. "Stay with me, Kei. I'll help you through this...but you have to trust me."

Kei looked at her for a few moments more, and each second felt like an unnerving eternity to Erra. The girl had grown up too fast, and it reflected so much in her eyes; no warmth, no childlike innocence. Finally she looked down and shrugged, and Erra figured that was the best she was going to get out of the girl, at least for now. 

"I'm glad you're listening to reason. You have training in an hour and shrine duties after that. I expect to see you in the dojo, ready to go." Erra stood up then, not watching for any response from her cousin, and turned to leave. She was being harsh, she knew that, but she also knew it was the only thing her little cousin would listen to at that moment. She knew because she'd been much the same way after her own mother died.

As she exited her home she passed by her little brother, Satoshi, who had been peeking in nervously at the entire exchange but now looked like he was trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing. He was only a few years older than Kei; they'd become fast friends when Kei's mother came back to the village with her. "Oh, hi Erra," he said casually, as if running into her was a surprise. She hid a chuckle and ruffled his hair.

"Go on inside. You two can play before training today." He nodded at her, not even acknowledging that she knew that he was spying on them, and entered the house quickly. Out of curiosity, she took up her little brother's post and peeked in on them.

"Hey, Kei. There's still an hour before training. Do you want to go by the pond for a little bit?" Kei didn't respond immediately, and for a moment Erra wondered if the little girl had been too badly damaged by her mother's death and her own words to even acknowledge her best friend. But, eventually, she did look up into Satoshi's eager face.

"Sure. That sounds nice." Kei stood, accepting Satoshi's hand, and gave her friend the slightest of grins.

"Cool." Satoshi took a step away, but then stepped back and rubbed one of Kei's fake ears gently. "I like the ears, Kei. You really look good with them." Kei's embarrassed giggle was the best music to Erra's ears, and she knew that her cousin would heal.


	2. Real Enough

Real Enough (12/25/08)

"Hey, Romy."

"Ling." Romy opened her eyes and saw Ling sitting beside her, his dark eyes sparkling with humor and mischief. "Is something wrong? Did the report come in from Ian and Ren?"

"Calm down, everything is fine," he replied, gently pushing her back to the ground from where she'd instinctively half-risen. "I was just wondering if you knew what day it is."

"Beats me," she sighed, looking back up at the artifical sky. Even at night, with all the edges blurred, she could still see the anti-aliasing around the edges of the clouds backlit by the moon. "We've been here so long, I've lost track of the real world."

"I figured as much," he grinned. "I ran the BIOS clock prog I put together. It's December 25th out there."

"So?"

"Um, hello? December 25th? Jolly ol' Saint Nick, mistletoe, chestnuts on an open fire, presents for all the good girls and boys?"

"It's Christmas, I get it. What I meant was 'so what'?"

"C'mon, Romy. You can't honestly tell me that you didn't get that little twinge of love and hope in your heart at the mention of Christmas."

"Nope." She saw him open his mouth, no doubt about to launch into another tirade about Christmas, so she reached up and clapped her hand over his mouth, stopping him. "First of all, I kind of lost my enchantment with Christmas after spending so many years in the hospital over the holiday season. Believe me, if you ever want to become disenchanted with Christmas, watch the girl in the bed next to you pray to God and write a letter to Santa asking them to help clear her cancer only to die on Christmas Eve. Second, Christmas doesn't have any meaning here. It simply doesn't exist. The only thing that matters is ridding the network of the Rezzers."

"What if I said I have a present for you?"

"More strands of binary code?" She gave him a half smile, looking into his kind eyes. "That's lost it's appeal too, knowing nothing here is real."

"Oh no, what I have for you is very real." She opened her mouth to question what could be real in this electronic world before it was covered, gently and softly, by his own lips...


	3. Drifting

Drifting (01/09/09)

The world, as I awoke to it, was awash in a vast array of blues and violets. I was moving slightly, rocking ever so gently back and forth...or was it that the world was instead moving me? Noise, such as it was, was muted to the point of simply becoming white noise, soothing and unimportant. My body was heavy, and I was unable to move so much as a finger, but at the same time was effortlessly light, and for the first time I knew the meaning of weightless suspension. 

Underwater, then. That much I understood. No other place could be so peaceful and calming, embraced in a saline environment where I was protected, much as a baby in it's mother's womb. I was, however, breathing normally, and could see quite clearly without the sting of salt on my eyes. How long had I been asleep? When was that point where it no longer mattered if I breathed my life-giving oxygen or simply absorbed it from the environment around me? 

I remembered light from before; blinding, piercing, aching white light directly in my eyes. Shadows above me, talking in foreign tongues, and sharp instruments that these shadows held which poked and prodded at me. Unable to voice my pain or flinch away, I'd merely endured until the light had faded into darkness, before the darkness had become the blue-violet of blended water and sky. I was still tired, but curiosity over my world and my newly-acquired power won over me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...I have no excuse for this acid trip. -_-;


	4. Personal Touches

Personal Touches (02/22/09)

You see, I'm not like them. They can go through this desecrated city, blasting any and all zombies they come across. They can't give second thoughts to those whom they're re-killing...it's not in their nature, and it's not part of their survival. I'm not like them.

We walk now through an old apartment building, the paint peeling and the stench overwhelming. This is the only path back out onto the street, though, since the street we were on had cracked down to the sewer lines. This room, though dark and foreboding, offers us a welcome respite from the constant horde that we fight through. Ken sits at the doorway to the apartment, keeping an eye out for anything that might attack; Eli sleeps soundly on the broken couch, still holding his 9mm. I'll sleep too, in just a bit, but since I do so little in the way of actual fighting I feel obligated to prove myself in these little respites. Therefore, I wander through the apartment, scouring for anything that hasn't rotted or been stolen already, anything that might be useful.

My path has taken me to the back of the apartment, and I find myself in a little girls' room. The walls are a soothing pastel blue, and the walls are decorated with posters of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues. A pair of tiny skeletons, black-red blood still soaked into the bones in places but the flesh long since worn off, clutch each other on top of a blood soaked comforter. Though I know this room can't possibly have anything of value to us, I still wander around, picking up a stuffed bunny on my way through. On the desk I find an open book, one side filled with childish writing and a picture scrawled in crayon on the other side.

Me and sis are friends  
by Maddie  
Me and sis are friends  
We play together and color together  
We like Elmo  
I'm the bigger one  
So I gotta take care of her  
But I'm sick  
So she takes care of me  
Until I get better

I shouldn't have read that. All I can do is pick up the little journal and sit on the bed, holding it to my chest as I quietly cry. Why do I bother with these personal touches? It doesn't get us through this city and out into safety...it puts me more at danger. Does that make me more or less human than the protectors that sit outside in the living room, keeping me safe?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This more or less describes me whenever I play a survival horror game with my husband or friends. They want to keep moving on, but I have to look at every little thing in a room or read all the writing scrawled on the walls... And yes, sometimes I will depress myself to the point of not playing the game again for a while. But at least no one can say that I don't appreciate all the little 'personal touches' that go into a game!


End file.
